1672 – Forging a Trustworthy Relationship with Your Ghostwriter with Danielle Perlin-Good

Josh (00:00:05) - Hey there, thoughtful listener. Would you like consistent and predictable sales activity with no spam and no ads? I'll teach you step by step how to do this, particularly if you're an agency owner, consultant, coach or B2B service provider. What I teach has worked for me for more than 15 years and has helped me create more than $10 million in revenue. Just head to up my influence and watch my free class on how to create endless high ticket sales appointments. You can even chat with me live and I'll see and reply to your messages. Also, don't forget the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for guests. Go to up my influence and click on podcast. We'd love to have you. With us right now, it's Danielle Perlin-Good. Danielle, you are also known as the soul aligned ghostwriter. It's great to have you. Your website is the soul aligned ghostwriter. Hi, Danielle. Thanks for joining us.

Danielle (00:01:14) - Hi, Josh, Thanks so much for having me today.

Josh (00:01:16) - All right. So what do you do as the sole align ghostwriter?

Danielle (00:01:20) - Great question.

Danielle (00:01:21) - I work with C-suite executives and professional leaders on their nonfiction books, including memoirs, self-help, sport, leadership and business. And I work in various capacities of The Ghostwriter, a book coach and an editor.

Josh (00:01:37) - So. So lest someone here soul aligned and immediately say, uh oh, that might they might say, Oh, that feels like it's you work only with spiritual or new agey type authors. That's not the case.

Danielle (00:01:49) - It's not. I have a two pronged approach, and I work on the logical side as well as the spiritual side. So if somebody is not as into the spiritual, then I always say those are tools in my toolbox to get to unearth those vulnerable stories that we need for the book. And if we are not needing the meditations, the Oracle card readings, the No judgment understanding listening zone, I like to call it, then that's okay. But the logical part is also crucial and important in the process because we do need to talk about deadlines, deliverables, goals and the overall messages of what you want to share with your target readership and your target audience.

Josh (00:02:41) - Yeah. What would be some examples of of books that you've helped create? And again, to if you're allowed to be specific. By all means. If you know, again, I know sometimes in that ghostwriting role you're like, Oh man, I wish I could tell you about this one book because you probably know of it. That was me. But but a little bit maybe about your work in your background.

Danielle (00:03:05) - Absolutely. So I have over 18 years of writing and editing experience, and I've worked at the Chicago Tribune. I also did a stint at Albert Whitman and Company, which is a local publishing company in the Chicago area. I was the social media coordinator there for several years. So I bring not only a journalism background with writing and editing, but also digital marketing. And a book is a marketing tool for a lot of us, and it's really critical and important to think about the marketing aspects of the book in the beginning of the process. Now, in terms of the books that I've worked on, I've actually worked on more than 20 books now at this point and believe it actually because of the last few months might be closer to 25, which is very exciting.

Danielle (00:03:57) - And it's in there. They've been in different capacities. So I can tell you that I have worked on a number of thought leadership books, leadership coaches, people who are in leadership development, consultants who work with leadership teams at large companies. I've also worked on memoirs, multiple memoirs of folks who are either have been in also the leadership industry or they have had incredible stories and journeys. I'm working with one right now who has unfortunately, she grew up in foster care and had a abusive and neglectful childhood. So I do work with individuals fairly often who have had not the best life experiences, and it's really important to be able to sit with that and understand where they come from and give space for those stories to come alive.

Josh (00:05:03) - Um, you know, I would imagine it sounds like and I'm sure you've experienced this and working with the client, going through this process that this can actually boy, I'm thinking about the catharsis that can happen. You know, it's like if you've got these stories and I was just listening to an interviewer and they were talking about the power of not confession, but confiding in somebody, you know, if you're carrying a burden or you're carrying an experience and being just the the the freeing energy that happens when you're able to share that, I'm sure you've experienced a lot of that.

Danielle (00:05:40) - It happens almost weekly with all of my clients. I always joke that, you know, the my clients tend to cry on the phone with me, on Zoom with me in person, with me. It's a very, very common because crying is inherently a release. It's a release of our emotional baggage. And when we cry, we're literally letting go of what's been holding us back for sometimes many, many years. I mean, I have somebody I'm starting out with in a couple months who she told me she's been wanting to write her book for 18 years. And when somebody talks about how long they've been wanting to write their book, that in itself can be so emotional because they're not even talking about the stories, but because it's. Been inside them for that long. It's been inside them for so many years and it's just a dying to come out and be alive.

Josh (00:06:45) - Hmm. Would you mind maybe going through kind of the main. Let's say someone wants to. They want to write a book, right? And there's they've got some options, right? So they can either write it all themselves.

Josh (00:06:58) - There's probably some stuff in, some options in between. And then there's the full ghost writing experience. Would you mind maybe and again, please b help me out a little bit on maybe what those in-between options might be and very importantly, who might be a good fit for those different ways of producing the book. Obviously kind of concluding with, Okay, well here's who really just needs to work? The ghostwriter Yeah.

Danielle (00:07:27) - Great question. So I like to talk about our resources in life with this type of question. So we I like to say we have time, we have energy, we have money, we have mindset. If you have an abundance of time and energy and you want to learn something new, by all means take craft classes, take those, you know, experiences, go on those writing retreats. You can do it. You can absolutely do it yourself. We can learn anything we want on YouTube right now. The those inherently though, are resources that we have that are precious to us.

Danielle (00:08:04) - If you don't have time and energy, then that's when a ghostwriter might come into play. That also costs more money because you're spending less time and energy yourself. It's the same idea as hiring any type of service to do something for you. So you are outsourcing most of the organizing and the writing of the stories. So in a ghostwriting capacity, I interview the clients. I take those stories, I organize them, I flesh them out, I utilize my background in storytelling and craft and make this a beautiful, organized, lovely book. Right? And what happens in between those in between options. One is what I like to call a day intensive or experience where we meet for a set amount of hours. Usually it's virtually it can be in person and we flesh out that framework that you've been wanting to flesh out for probably many years now. And we sit down with it and organize those ideas with you. We brainstorm together and you end up with an outline by the end of that day, usually. Sometimes it takes a couple of days for us to go back and forth, of course, but that's one of the in-between options.

Danielle (00:09:27) - The other in-between option is coaching, and this is where you are responsible as the writer. And then I am responsible for coaching you to get to those goals that we have set in the beginning of our coaching relationship. And then another option, the third is my brand new writing accountability group, and we are in the midst of the very first one right now. Everybody in there is meeting their goals. We meet weekly for 12 weeks and I will be opening this up again in the fall winter, and it's going to be an enlightening, amazing experience for anybody who wants that accountability to get their goals done in terms of their writing.

Josh (00:10:14) - Yeah. And Daniel, I know that it can be, you know, thinking about what might be the most important thing that we leave behind is this memoir, you know, or that's how we we may feel about it. So hiring a ghostwriter, I think, should be done pretty thoughtfully. Any general recommendations you would make if it's not you, it's, you know, just like, well, listen, if you're going to hire a ghostwriter, do this, this, this and this.

Josh (00:10:42) - If you hear this, that's a red flag. If you hear this, that's good. That's what you want to hear. Any any recommendations on that process?

Danielle (00:10:50) - Yeah, I think that you first off, my number one recommendation is always to meet the person and we don't have to meet in person. Obviously, we can meet via Zoom, via Google, meet teams phone. It doesn't matter. But we have to meet each other to see if there is a synergy. And that connection, if we vibe, you have to be able to fully trust your ghostwriter. If you feel if your gut feeling and everybody listening has had that gut feeling one way or the other before when they've been in a situation where they're not comfortable and your gut is telling you to get out of that room or your gut is telling you, yes, these are my people, you listen to that. So when you're meeting that person, you'll know if you can get along with them. It's a long process. This is not a two week three.

Danielle (00:11:45) - Engagement. This is a minimum six month engagement, usually closer to 9 to 12 months, especially if we're talking about memoir. And yes, you can get it done in a quicker period of time. If somebody comes to you and says, Yes, I can go start your book in a couple of weeks, that is a red flag in my thanks. ChatGPT You know, that's an interesting point that you make there, too. And I will add this. I think that ChatGPT will only get better, will only get better. However, I doesn't know your stories. Even if you are inputting your stories, you need a human, whether it's you or somebody else, to help flesh out those stories and organize and ChatGPT can help brainstorm. And it's a great little sidekick, but it's not going to fully replace the person behind the writing.

Josh (00:12:44) - Yeah. And then finally, what outcomes? You know, let's say the book's getting done and now it goes, you know, we have it. And we ordered a crate of books for ourselves and hopefully we get this listed and indexed on Amazon.

Josh (00:12:59) - But what does that world typically look like once the book is done?

Danielle (00:13:03) - Yeah, so I'll actually go back a few steps. And what a lot of ghostwriters do is finish a completed manuscript. There are a lot of steps in between a finished manuscript and a published book. So we have cover design, we have formatting, we have proofreading, we have marketing. There are a lot of those steps that are integral to the book publishing process. I have colleagues and referral partners on my end, so whenever I work with a client, whether it's a coaching capacity or ghostwriting or something else, I always like to make sure that you're in good hands. And you know those next steps in terms of what that looks like. Then after the book is published, your goal should be to continuously market that book. So a lot of times, even in the very beginning when I'm doing an exploratory call with somebody, I will ask you, what is your goal for this book? Is it to leave a family legacy? Is it to encourage more speaking engagements? Is it to have more credibility and authority and trust behind you and your brand for courses or your coaching practice or your business in general? It doesn't quite matter what it is, but we have to be clear on that specific goal, and I want to see that goal being met when the book is published.

Josh (00:14:36) - Yeah. All right. So someone's been listening to our conversation. Danielle. And, like, hot diggity dog. I need to. I need to either have a conversation with Danielle, I need to learn more about. I don't know if there's a connection or there's a fit, but I want more. What would you recommend? Like, where do they go from here after they've heard our conversation? And again, thinking, here's just a little bit about the thoughtful entrepreneur we've learned is a lot of people find our episodes like years from now. So two years from now, from when we're recording this now, someone's going to be listening to this episode. The the universe is directed them, the gods have directed them in our direction. Now they've heard our conversation. What do they do now? Where do they go?

Danielle (00:15:17) - So there are two options. One is find me on LinkedIn because I am very hopeful that LinkedIn will still be around years from now, and LinkedIn is a great place to connect with me.

Danielle (00:15:31) - Message me, say, Hey, this is where I heard you. Let's have a conversation in might have a different calendar link in a couple of years. So I'll just tell you LinkedIn for that one. And then the second option is to go to my website, The Soul aligned ghostwriter, and you will be able to schedule a consultation with me there.

Josh (00:15:50) - Yeah. All right. Danielle Perlin-Good your website, the Soul aligned ghostwriter Danielle, thank you so much for joining us. I've appreciated the conversation.

Danielle (00:16:01) - Thank you, Josh.

Josh (00:16:08) - Thanks for listening to the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. If you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program, please visit up My Influence slash guest. If you're a listener, I'd love to shout out your business to our whole audience for free. You can do that by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or join our listener Facebook group. Just search for the thoughtful entrepreneur and Facebook. I'd love even if you just stopped by to say hi, I'd love to meet you.

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